1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to systems and methods for acquiring information on a construction site.
2. Description of the Related Art
The following description and examples are not admitted to be prior art by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
Currently construction monitoring is mostly a manual process in which individual engineers are tasked with “walking the site” of a construction project periodically (e.g., daily) and producing reports that detail the status and progress of different construction tasks. Although the use of electronic design data such as building information models (BIMs) is becoming more common, there is usually not a tight coupling between the BIM and the progress reports.
Many systems and methods have been developed to generate information about a construction site. For example, light detection and ranging (LIDAR or LADAR) is an optical remote sensing technology that can measure the distance to, or other properties of, a target by illuminating the target with light, often using pulses from a laser. Point-cloud scanners (LIDAR) are available from multiple companies for use in construction sites. While such scanners can provide significant information about construction sites, they do have a number of disadvantages. For example, such scanners typically require setup (location determination) per observation point and generate very large point clouds that require offline and lengthy processing and incorporate sensitive and heavy optics that are not a good fit to a construction site. These limitations are inherent because these instruments acquire data without knowledge of their environment and of the desired measurements. As a result, it can be hard to extract objects of interest from a point cloud (e.g., due to too many points and/or blind acquisition). An alternative class of instruments are typically referred to as total stations. These, semi-manual LIDAR systems can also be used to measure objects of interest one point at a time. However, similarly to laser scanners, such systems typically require a lengthy set-up time and require a manual connection to the site BIM (if any). In addition, since they measure only one point at a time, the real accuracy of the object location or other measurements such as dimension is prone to errors.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to develop methods and/or systems for acquiring information for a construction site that do not have one or more of the disadvantages described above.